Date/Time
Date(s) - Fri 20 Jan 2023
7:45 pm - 9:15 pm
Waking Dreams: Imagination in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life
An Oxford Psychotherapy Society evening event with Allan Frater, author of the recently published ‘Waking Dreams’. 
A waking dream sometimes happens upon waking from sleep when a dream continues to feel present alongside an awareness of lying-in bed. Waking dream practice (also known as ‘active imagination’ and ‘guided imagery’) takes advantage of the spontaneously creative and therapeutic imagination found in this borderland consciousness in-between waking and dreaming.The evening will present critical developments in this field, drawing upon contemporary perspectives in complexity theory, fractal geometry, ecotherapy and transpersonal psychology.
Key principles and the basis of a practical method will be given for an image-centric approach to psychotherapy within focussed applications such as active-imagination and art-based methods as well as general therapeutic work with memories and future-fantasies, present moment perceptions and the transference.
The evening will be of interest to any practitioner who wants to work more creatively and freely with images and imagining.
Speaker: Allan Frater is a UKCP psychotherapist and supervisor in private practice. Since 2011 he has taught at the Psychosynthesis Trust, on the Foundation and Diploma courses as well as CPD events related to his research interests in imagination, ecopsychology and transpersonal psychology.